Frostbite

Chapter Twenty-Six

Again. A voice. Maybe two strides to her left. It said her name.

Her real name.

"Eira."

Her head swung in the direction of the sound. If it was real, was it a trap? If she followed the sound, would she be walking into the bear's den, so to speak?

"Eira!" Urgent. Coming from around the corner of the nearest building to her left.

Realisation crashed over her like an icy wave. She knew that voice. It had been a little while, but it was unmistakable.

Her legs working on their own, she walked the distance in an instant. She peered around the corner, eyes widening at what she saw.

"Eira, in here!"

He was crouched in a tight gap between the two buildings, not dissimilar to the one she had hidden in herself a few weeks ago. His eyes were wide and staring, angry red streaking the whites and bruise-like shadows beneath them. He motioned frantically for her, so much so she thought his arm could easily collide with the hard granite of the wall.

Eira inched closer, brain whirring with possible explanations. Was she really just seeing things?

"How are you here?" She'd intended it to sound like a demand, but she ended up sounding just as bewildered as she felt.

"Now—it doesn't matter. There are more important things to be worrying about."

She narrowed her eyes, having managed to shake her previous shock a little. An idea of exactly why and how he'd got there was becoming clear—not that she was happy about it. "You mean..."

"You're in danger, Eira," he said. "They've begun their hunt. It happened yesterday."

Eira sucked in her breath so quickly it strained the muscles in her chest. This. This was what had crossed her mind before, as she'd wandered through the desolation of the streets. The only thing that could terrify the city's every inhabitant into cowering inside their houses. It also explained the death on the air. Everywhere the Frosts went, that scent followed. Eira included.

"You didn't do all this just to tell me that, did you, Edan?"

From the moment they first met until now, Edan had never once been hard to read. The answer was written all over his face, so he needn't even utter it.

"I had no choice." He looked directly at her, those bloodshot eyes unblinking. "They drafted me in to help find you, obviously thinking that since the two of us always stuck together, I'd have known where you went. I spent a couple of weeks feeding them misinformation, but they started getting suspicious about it after a while—to the point where I couldn't be sure of my own future. So I did the only thing I could that would save myself and help you. And I wanted to be free."

How foolishly loyal. Endangering himself for her sake. She wanted to rebuke him for it, tell him he should have done what's best for himself, not her, but knew that, deep down, she'd have done it for him as well.

"Being hunted is no freedom," Eira mumbled.

"I would rather be hunted, than be trapped inside that place a minute longer."